DecodeHer (rebroadcast)

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.6 • 986 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

They were pioneers in their fields, yet their names are scarcely known – because they didn’t have a Y chromosome. We examine the accomplishments of two women who pioneered code breaking and astronomy during the early years of the twentieth century and did so in the face of social opprobrium and a frequently hostile work environment. Henrietta Leavitt measured the brightnesses of thousands of stars and discovered a way to gauge the distances to galaxies, a development that soon led to the concept of the Big Bang. Elizabeth Friedman, originally hired to test whether William Shakespeare really wrote his plays, was soon establishing the science of code breaking, essential to success in the two world wars. Also, the tech industry is overwhelmingly male. Girls Who Code is an initiative to redress the balance by introducing girls to computer programming, and encouraging them to follow careers in tech. Guests: Jason Fagone – Author of “The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies” Lauren Gunderson – Playwright of Silent Sky, which is being performed all over the world, form the First Folio Theatre to the Repertory Philippines Reshma Saujani – Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, and the author of "Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder” Originally aired April 1, 2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.2	Tech moves fast so keep pace with the daily crunch podcast from Tech
0:38.0	crunch with new episodes every day this podcast will give you a quick overview on everything you need and should
0:44.9	know about startups new tech regulations and more listen to Tech Crunch
0:50.7	Daily Crunch now wherever you get your podcasts that's Tech Crunch Daily Crunch Now, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:54.3	That's Tech Crunch Daily Crunch,
0:56.6	wherever you get your podcasts. So I'm in grad school at Caltech studying stellar structure, which is how the stars are made.
1:16.0	And I tripped across this name Annie Jump Cannon.
1:20.0	I had never heard of her. She had lived 60 years earlier and had been the one who first
1:25.6	categorized the stars, sort of the way Tuxonimus categorized critters, and that was the big step in learning how the stars perform, how they work.
1:35.0	I was astounded by that.
1:37.0	I certainly knew of some women in astronomy, of course, but they were all contemporaries.
1:40.0	They were working at the time.
1:42.0	They weren't big historical figures.
	...

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